


Space Case

by audreycritter



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, Green Lantern (Comics), Green Lantern - All Media Types, Justice League - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Justice Bros, TW: Medication, bruce is a helpful creep, hal is sad, reclaiming platonic affection from the hellpit of toxic masculinity, tw: mental illness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-03
Updated: 2019-04-03
Packaged: 2020-01-04 10:51:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18342173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/audreycritter/pseuds/audreycritter
Summary: Hal stood at the edge of the room, running one hand through his sleep-mussed hair, in his old USAF sweats and one sock and the ring on his hand, always the ring, and he looked at Batman with a baleful glare.Then, he flicked the kitchen light on.“Tell me you at least brought coffee,” Hal said, his throat dry and scratched with sleep.





	Space Case

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jerseydevious](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jerseydevious/gifts).



> what is fic if not self-indulgence. this is just an exploration of hal + mental health issues and bruce + mental health issues and if that's not your cup of tea, that's cool.

It wasn’t the first time Hal had walked into his living room to find Bruce sitting in the armchair in the corner, beneath the cheap floor lamp that tilted a little to the left. The lamp was always off, when Bruce sat in that chair, like he just couldn’t stand the idea of being visible. The asshole must have turned it off just to sit there because Hal knew he’d left it on when he’d dragged himself from the couch to bed sometime after midnight. It pissed Hal off, even though he hadn’t been in the room, because he’d been bothered in those small hours about the blackness of the night. It hadn’t been a fear of the dark, just a stomach-turning loathing of it, and the very idea of the room being dark as pitch beside him while he slept made him queasy, for some reason. It wasn’t dawn, which meant Bruce probably hadn’t gone to bed yet.

Hal stood at the edge of the room, running one hand through his sleep-mussed hair, in his old USAF sweats and one sock and the ring on his hand, always the ring, and he looked at Batman with a baleful glare.

Then, he flicked the kitchen light on.

“Tell me you at least brought coffee,” Hal said, his throat dry and scratched with sleep. The sleep wasn’t much— just the few hours he’d managed to cobble from whatever the hell his schedule was, these days, when his internal clock was on some other galaxy’s solar rotation. That’s what he blamed it on when he slept from ten to six during the day and then from nine to nine, night to breakfast after that, and then a whole day and night where he might only get an hour or three.

This was one of the times it was three.

The wooden apple clock on the wall, a leftover from a previous tenant, said it was almost five in the morning. He really needed coffee, if he was going to deal with whatever it was that had brought Bruce to the apartment.

“I did,” Bruce said, nodding once toward the kitchen. The motion was just a slice of gray shadow in the corner.

A cup, green with a white plastic lid, sat on the counter bar. Hal liked the open floor plan of this place, the way he could see every entry and exit from almost anywhere that wasn’t the bedroom interior. He went and leaned on the counter, picked up the cup. It was still hot under the brown, embossed sleeve. That was nice. It meant Bruce hadn’t been there long, that maybe Hal’s own recent sleep habits hadn’t strangled his ability to wake at slight environmental change.

“I’d say thanks, but you broke in, so I’d say this just about covers the beginning of the apology you’re getting ready to give me. We’ll call it your soft open.” Hal sipped the coffee, expecting bitter black, and tasted instead something sweetly burnt— caramel, and milk. He glanced down at the cup in surprise, the way he might at the coffee shop realizing he’d grabbed the wrong drink. It wasn’t bad, it was just not what he’d been expecting. “Huh,” he said, giving Bruce another look.

“You missed the meeting,” Bruce said, and the caramel soured on Hal’s tongue.

“Yep, that I did. Funny that you should have a problem with that, seeing how I was off-world and only just got back, but thanks for the slap on the wrist.”

He drank the coffee anyway, because it pissed him off, the thought of Bruce ruining it for him.

For a long time, Bruce said nothing. He just sat there in his jeans and faded Gotham Knights hoodie. A ball cap sat on the table beside the lamp and Hal wondered if he intentionally tried to look like Clark while dressing casual, or if it was some kind of subconscious accident that he associated Clark with  _normal_.

“So, is this some kind of welcome home party, or—”

“You weren’t off-world. You lied to Barry. What I can’t figure out is, why.” Bruce said this the way he said anything, ever, which was with this kind of cool confidence that made almost anyone who dared argue sound immediately childish or hysteric in comparison.

“Fuck you,” Hal said crisply, for lack of a better rebuttal. He meant it, too— his blood was just about boiling through his skin. “What the hell, Bruce. Lie to Barry? What reason could I possibly have for lying about this, this thing that is my  _job_ , the one I manage to do all the time? Are you that butthurt that I missed your precious little League meeting? I know what happened in that one and the last one, because I read the fucking minutes, because I know exactly what’s at stake and why it’s important. I read them the second I got home, actually, a few hours ago, before I even—”

“There was no meeting,” Bruce said.

Hal’s mouth snapped shut with an audible click.

The coffee cup, mostly empty, crumpled slightly under his grip.

“What,” he said, to the ringing silence that filled his ears. If Bruce sitting in his apartment in the dark had felt like an imposition before, now it felt like some sort of threat, and the ring hummed warmth around his finger. He wondered, idly, if that wasn’t how Bruce felt when one of them showed up in the cave— possibly, it felt more like a private home to him than the tour-worthy Manor above it.

Bruce was a statue, just the hint of light on his teeth when he spoke. “It’s Saturday, Hal,” he said. For some reason his voice was still calm but it was also gentle. “The meeting was two days ago.”

“I…” Hal said, swallowing hard. The anger, so crisp a second ago, felt dulled. “I lose days off-world,” he said, quietly. “It happens.”

“No,” Bruce said. “That isn’t what happened this time.”

“You smug bastard,” Hal choked, and green ran up his arm, vibrant and ready.

“Your milk is still good, you have Chinese leftovers in the fridge that haven’t turned, you have a parking ticket from yesterday on the desk, and another from two weeks ago beneath it.” Bruce’s hands were clasped, like they were discussing macroeconomics or Russian literature. “That’s an incomplete list, but you can tell me if it’s missing anything essential.”

“Get out of my house,” Hal growled, and he was standing with his feet planted; he was no longer slouching on the counter, with no memory of pushing away. His hands were in fists at his side and he thought he was showing an admirable amount of restraint. “Get the fuck up and leave.”

“Barry thinks you’ve been off-world for the past six weeks,” Bruce said. He wasn’t getting up. “How much of that time were you lying?”

The dulled anger was whetted into something razor-sharp, and what Hal couldn’t quite figure out was how he could be so furious at Bruce, but feel like it was  _him_  the blades of that anger were cutting into shredded ribbons.

His blood burned, spilling down his body.

“Get  _out_!” he roared, and then there was a swell of green in the apartment, but his vision was perfectly, absolutely clear. He picked up the coffee table with a construct from the ring and hurled it against the wall next to Bruce, and it shattered the window there with a horrific crash only a foot from Bruce’s head. He saw the glass and bent metal of the broken table with sharp clarity, where they spilled across the carpet around brown leather sneakers.

The single thought he had, staring at the mess— and his breathing wasn’t ragged, it wasn’t him panting that loudly, because how could it be—was that Bruce hadn’t flinched. It was all he had time to think, before the shattering glass echoed in his ears, growing louder by the second.

It took monumental effort to beat it back, the way the bile rose up his closing throat, the waves of sound lapping against his brain, but he did it. He did it with hunched shoulders and closed eyes and he stumbled back to sit on a stool, desperate to grip the cheap vinyl over foam cushion and dig his fingers in and feel something that wasn’t the ghost of grass blades.

Six weeks. Six weeks? Had it been that long, since he’d told Barry he was…

He expected that when he opened his eyes again, Bruce would be gone. Hal knew it wouldn’t even be a delayed acquiescence to the demand that he leave. It would be because Hal had made it impossible, distasteful, for him to stay.

Finally, his breathing was enough under control that he looked around the living room.

Bruce was still sitting in the chair.

When Hal looked at him, Bruce reached up and over and flipped the switch on the floor lamp. White, clear light bathed his face and where there had been shadow and stone there was now just a tired man with his lips pressed into a line.

In the added light, it was even easier to see the wreckage. A breeze curled through the broken window, and dragged a shiver up his spine. He’d thrown the table and missed Bruce by inches— on purpose, but there was no doubt in his mind, in the cold aftermath, that he’d intended to scare him. He’d been trying to scare him, and even a few inches one direction could have meant disaster to more than just the furniture.

“I’m…” he said, his lips numb. “I’m sorry, I didn’t…”

He looked down at the ring, now dull green and quiet on his hand.

“That was,” he said. “You have to get out of here, I can’t…”

“Hal,” Bruce said, and somehow this was the gentlest he’d sounded yet, when he had every reason to be furious. “Tell me what’s going on.”

“I’m…” Hal said, staring open-mouthed at the wreckage. It was curved and cracked and smoke was rising from the…he shook his head.

“Let me venture a guess,” Bruce said, and because Hal couldn’t control himself he couldn’t tell Batman what to do. He just sat there and let Bruce say things. “The fracture in your arm two months ago was worse than you told anyone. It may have even required surgery.”

“Correct,” Hal said, through his dry mouth. He was still clutching the stool seat. The break had been bad, he’d known that pretty much immediately. Hal justified keeping it to himself because he convinced himself Barry would worry but be unable to do anything.

Then, Bruce stood and left the living room. He walked into the kitchen, pulled a glass from a shelf. He examined the bottom of it, filled it with tap water, and set it in front of Hal.

“Drink,” he said.

“I don’t…” Hal protested and then downed half the glass anyway, twisting to face the counter. “Why do you even care?”

The look Bruce gave him was an entire reprimand packed into one twitch of his eyebrows.

Hal barreled on despite the look. “If this is about getting me off the League roster, then it’s not like that, I’m fine. I’m taking the time off, okay? And what business is it of yours if I’m lying to Barry or not?”

“Hal,” Bruce said again. “I’m a lying man. We both know that. But behind every lie is a reason, a purpose. What I’m trying to figure out here is  _why_.”

A problem. That’s all it was; he was just a problem to Bruce, and if he gave him an answer Bruce would feel like he’d found a solution and he’d go away.

“Uh, I’m…I stopped taking meds.”

“For your arm.”

“No.” Hal’s mouth had never felt as dry as it did in that moment, and he finished off the water. His hand dropped to the counter. That single word hung in the air, almost as loud as the glass.

Bruce walked away from the counter and Hal almost sobbed in relief. He was leaving, and Hal could…could…whatever the fuck he’d been doing alone for six weeks, he could do that, and nobody would…

Then, Bruce sat down on the stool next to his.

“I’m going to tell you a story,” Bruce said. “I am telling you this as an offer in good faith—” Hal made a choked noise, at that phrase, something desperate— “and then you will tell me what is going on. Clear?”

“Crystal, baby,” Hal said, frozen in place.

“When I younger, my last year of high school, I stopped taking medication I was not supposed to stop taking. I had decided this for whatever reason sixteen year olds with a death wish decide anything. I took an AP Bio midterm then I woke up in Florida. I have no memory of what I did to get there, or why. I had to call Alfred and read the hotel name off the stationery in the desk, for him to come find me, and I did not know until he arrived that I was covered in my own blood.”

“What the fuck,” Hal breathed, which was maybe not the best thing to say. “Jesus, Bruce.”

“I started taking the medication again. My feelings on this had become, clearly, irrelevant. So, now, I will ask you again: why?”

The funny thing about Bruce was that he got away with this thing, this weird trick of attention, where you stopped thinking of him as human and started thinking of him as something as invincible and perfect as what he wanted you to think. It was some kind of persuasive force, maybe Hal’s kid brother with his face buried in those fantasy books he loved would have called it glamour, like something from a fairy tale.

Then, he’d pull something out like this and the world would tilt sideways, and Hal resented the hell out of him that it worked: you started thinking, ‘Well, maybe if Batman…” in this way that made you feel safe, like you weren’t going to say or do anything that could shock him or that he hadn’t already lived through somehow. Hal had done it once with a nasty Corps case, when he saw rotting bodies every time he closed his eyes, and he’d flung it out into the air when pissed at Bruce just to see him react.

It was like the coffee table, like he’d seen it coming and chose to bear the risk: he didn’t flinch.

“They were…meds,” Hal said, his voice thick. “That I stopped because of the arm. The stuff they put me on after the surgery, it did something to my brain, and the old meds didn’t work. New side effects, I guess.”

Nightmares. They’d given him vivid nightmares, where they never had before. He was seeing Martin Jordan die on a loop, along with the other horrors he’d accumulated in his mind to serve as fodder. He had barely been sleeping, and with his arm and the pain, he just decided to cut his losses. The jumpiness was new, but he figured that would fade.

Then there was the government shutdown, and he was a contractor with Ferris Air, and those contracts were frozen and there went his savings and his energy and his time and at some point, he’d simply decided he’d be okay without them.

“I thought I’d be okay without them,” he said. “The anesthesia had changed how they worked, maybe it had fixed that, too.”

This was the part where Bruce would say,  _Jordan, you’re an idiot._  Hal would argue, but secretly agree with him.

“Have you been okay without them,” is what Bruce said instead, and that was worse.

Hal choked on nothing and put a hand over his face.

“Okay,” he said. “I’m…I don’t know if…fuck, I lied to Barry about this, why would I do that. I don’t even know what month it is.”

A warm hand landed on his shoulder and the involuntary, strangled noise that caught behind Hal’s teeth was one that kept his head ducked down in shame. The hand retreated, just the barest centimeter, and Hal leaned toward it on impulse.

Bruce’s hand settled firmly on his shoulder and gripped.

“I want you to come home with me. We’ll hire a service to clean that up, and Alfred can get a few good meals into you and we can figure out the medication. We can keep an eye on you until you’re ready. Nobody else will need to know why.”

“I’m fine,” Hal said. “I can handle it.”

He couldn’t see it, but he could feel the Look Bruce was giving the back of his head. And then, to his great astonishment, the words, “You’re an idiot, Jordan,” were soft, and accompanied by a palm rubbing circles on his back.

Hal worked on not losing his shit or making some kind of frantic, needy noise. He just drew an arm— his sore arm— across his face.

“Alright,” he said. “I’ll come. But only for the free food.”

The hand fell away and Hal exhaled, and stood.

He swayed on his feet, possibly from exhaustion, and somehow ended up with his forehead pressed into Bruce’s shoulder trying to keep upright.

“Sorry,” he muttered, through gritted teeth. He willed the dizziness to pass and had very little luck.

Then a hand was cupping the back of his head, and Bruce was murmuring, “Breathe with me, just like that, in and out,” and he had a distinctly British inflection on  _out_  that distracted Hal from the fact that his breathing had gotten ragged and he was very close to sobbing like a baby. The hand cupping his head stroked his hair and the rhythm of that helped him work through the tight bands around his chest, get in air again.

“I’m…pretty fucked up, I think,” Hal said,

“Not more than anyone else. Don’t let it go to your head.”

The words were dry but Hal laughed, and he laughed, and laughed until there were tears in his eyes and his forehead was digging into Bruce’s collarbone to hold him up.

“Let’s go,” Bruce said quietly, gently, when Hal’s laughter had subsided.

Hal straightened and tipped his head back at the ceiling and inhaled, then exhaled.

“Okay,” he said, trying to think of how to say  _thank you_ , and  _don’t tell me what to do, asshole_  in the same phrase. All he came up with was, “Next time, knock.”


End file.
